City of Mirrors

by Melodie Johnson Howe

  Across from the bed was a bolted door. “Ryan?” I called out.

  Hearing a low moan, I rushed toward the door. Heath grabbed for my shoulder, but I jerked away, pulled open the bolt, and hurried inside. Lamplight from the bedroom seeped into the chamber, revealing a six-by-six-foot space with cement walls and floor. A cell. A common garden hose snaked from a spigot to a drain in the center of the floor. To the right was the only piece of furniture, a wooden table. Ryan was lying on the floor next to it, wearing an Ugg on his left foot. The other foot was bare. His face was lost in shadow.

  Pocketing my gun, I knelt beside him. “Ryan, it’s me, Diana.”

  Suddenly a harsh glare from an overhead blub filled the room. Heath had found the light switch. I repressed a gasp. Ryan flinched, then peered up at me with one clear blue eye. The other was a swollen slit surrounded by bloody gashes.

  I took his hand. “Can you talk?”

  His distended lips parted. “Uh-huh.” The sound was small, painful.

  The floor felt damp on my knees. Heath crouched on Ryan’s other side and stared warily back into the bedroom.

  Then he picked up the hose. “So this is where Parson tortures his victims. Makes the cleanup easy.” Disgusted, he threw it behind him, and said to Ryan, “Can you move your legs and arms?”

  Nodding, Ryan gestured at the small bloody-black wounds seared into his legs.

  “Cigarette burns,” Heath said.

  “I’m calling 911.” I reached into my purse.

  “No,” Heath said.

  “But he needs to go to an emergency room.”

  “They’ll ask too many questions about how he got his wounds. The police could get involved. Ryan’s the perfect set-up guy for Jenny’s murder.”

  Ryan’s hand touched mine. “He’s right.”

  “We’ll put Ryan into your car, and I’ll follow you back to his house so I can make sure it’s secure. You should call a private doctor. You must know one of those feel-good guys. Hollywood’s full of them. He can book Ryan into the celeb wing of a hospital where the docs can take care of him and security is trained to keep the patients under wraps.” Heath peered down at Ryan. “We’re going to sit you up, okay?”

  Ryan grunted. It was good enough for a yes.

  Heath and I lifted him into a sitting position and leaned him against the wall.

  “Are you dizzy?” I asked.

  “No. Couldn’t take it.” Tears oozed from his eyes. “Couldn’t …”

  “There aren’t many of us who could, Ryan.”

  “She’s right.” Heath moved to the table and looked through the items on top. “Wallet, cell phone, change, keys, and a comb. The possessions a man carries in his pockets can look pretty dreary.” He checked the driver’s license. “They’re Ryan’s.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he gazed down. “This is a cement floor, something’s not right.” Heath tapped his foot. Then he swept Ryan’s belongings into his pockets and asked him, “You weren’t in the other room, were you?”

  “No,” Ryan winced. “Parson got a phone call. They left in a hurry.”

  Mrs. Parson’s suicide saved Ryan, I thought, as Heath walked back into the bedroom. I got to my feet and stood in the doorway.

  With his foot, Heath pressed the old floorboards, making them creak. “We heard this sound downstairs. Ryan couldn’t have made it—he’s on a cement slab and was locked in. So who else was walking around, and where are they?” Dark with concern, his eyes met mine as his hand slipped inside his jacket and again pulled out his Colt. Then he ran his hand along the top of the wooden chair. “Looks like this chair goes with the table Ryan’s things were on.” He lifted his chin, peering up at the ceiling. “Shit …”

  Above his head was an open crawl space. Before Heath or I could move, a man plunged down, sending both Heath and himself crashing to the floor. I froze as Heath’s gun flew from his hand, skittering under the nightstand, while a second gun vanished under the bed. His sleeve had slid up, showing a too-familiar tattoo—it was Rubio.

  I pulled the Glock from my pocket. Rubio started crawling across the floor, going for his gun. Heath got to his knees, Rubio turned, swinging a fist at him. The blow glanced off Heath’s jaw. Grabbing each other, they rolled. I tried to keep my aim on Rubio, but the pair had become a unit, their bodies rolling and tossing together while their legs thrashed and their fists pounded. This was not a choreographed fight by stunt men. It was raw, ugly, and awkward. The Glock shook in my hands. What were the odds of shooting Heath if I fired at Rubio, I wondered desperately. About 100 percent, I decided.

  Hell, I was standing there like a B-movie actress, gasping, eyes wide. I aimed the gun at the ceiling and fired. Ceiling plaster fell like chunks of dirty snow.

  “Back off, asshole!” I shouted with all the butch authority of a female superhero.

  The noise from the gun had been deafening in the small room. Rubio momentarily shifted his eyes toward me, and Heath head-butted him. Dazed, Rubio fell backwards. Heath clambered up to his feet. Weaving, he leaned over the downed man, grabbed his shirt collar, jerked him up, and smashed his fist into his face again and again. Blood poured from Rubio’s nose and mouth. I didn’t move. I didn’t try to stop Heath.

  Breathing hard, Heath finally let the motionless man fall back onto the floor, then straightened up. Working his jaw, he looked around the room, his eyes darting like a man who had lost something very important.

  “Your gun’s there,” I pointed under the nightstand.

  Snatching up the weapon, he holstered it. Then he tucked in his shirttail and adjusted his jacket. Finally put together again, he looked at me. “Back off, asshole?”

  I smiled. “It was all I could think of at the moment.”

  “You all right?” A black-and-blue mark was forming on his chin. Another bruised person in my life.

  “I’m waiting for the prop man to take the gun out of my hand.”

  Knuckles raw, Heath’s hand covered mine as he slipped the gun from my grip and slid it into my pocket. “Let’s get Ryan the hell out of here before Parson’s men come back.”

  “Is Rubio alive?”

  “Yeah, we’ll leave him where they put Ryan.” He cocked his head and frowned at me. “You look surprised. You think I was going to kill him?”

  I didn’t answer. I honestly didn’t know, and it left me feeling uneasy with him and with myself. Rubio had tried to murder me, and he had tortured Ryan. When Heath was pounding him bloody, I wanted Rubio dead and out of my life. I thought of the wind blowing through the shattered glass of my living room and wondered if I’d ever be the woman I once was, or thought I was, before I tried to help Jenny. But I already knew the answer.

  Heath strode past me into the cell. “We’re gonna get you on your feet, Ryan.”

  I helped Heath lift Ryan into a standing position. Then we got him into the bedroom and sat him on the edge of the bed. I settled beside him and watched Heath pick up Rubio by his feet and drag him across the floor.

  As he got him into the cell, Ryan said to me, “I need to tell you.”

  “Are you in pain?” I asked.

  He licked at the caked blood on his lips. “Parson wanted a name.”

  “You mean someone he could get more information from about his daughter’s death?”

  Hanging his head, he nodded.

  “Whose name did you give him?” Heath asked sharply over his shoulder as he closed the cell door and bolted it on Rubio.

  “She was selling the Bel Air house. All I could think of.”

  “Celia?” I felt my entire body tighten. “You gave him Celia’s name?”

  “I couldn’t take the pain.” He looked up.

  I put my arm around him.

  “It was the smell of my own flesh,” Ryan mumbled.

  “I’m calling her.” I took out my iPhone.
r />   “Tell her to get the hell out of wherever she is and don’t tell anyone where she’s going. Even you. It’s safer for her that way.” Heath stared at me. “Safer for you, too.”

  The phone rang only once.

  “Yes?” Celia answered quickly, as if she were expecting a call.

  “It’s Diana.”

  “I’ve been meaning to call you …”

  “Don’t talk, Celia. Listen. You’re in danger. You have to leave your house, office, wherever you are. Go to a hotel and don’t tell anybody where you’re staying. Even me. Just go. Now.”

  I could hear her sharp intake of breath. “Is it Parson?”

  “Yes. I can’t talk now. I’ll call you on your cell as soon as I can and explain it.”

  The phone went dead in my hand.

  “She’s leaving,” I told them.

  Ryan sighed heavily, relieved.

  Puzzled, Heath said, “Did she ask you exactly why she had to go?”

  “No. In fact she asked me if she was in danger from Parson. A man she’d told me she didn’t know.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Forty-five minutes later, we arrived at Ryan’s house. From the car I had called the number of a doctor Ryan knew; I’d hoped he was more that the feel-good kind. His place was dark, no lights showing, which was the way it should be. Ryan gave Heath his house keys, and Heath walked through, checking it. Then we helped Ryan into his room and onto his bed.

  In the kitchen I found a baggie containing a stale bagel and dumped it out, replacing it with ice from the freezer, which was filled with vodka bottles. Then I wrapped a hand towel around my makeshift ice bag.

  By the time I got back to Ryan’s bedroom, he was stretched out, his head on his pillow, his hands clasped over his stomach. Heath had put the other Ugg on his bare foot. Now in the doorway, he leaned on the jamb and watched.

  I pressed the ice gently to Ryan’s bruised eye.

  “Ouch!” Ryan groaned. “That hurts.”

  “Keep it there. Or you’re going to end up looking like the Elephant Man.”

  He grabbed my wrist. “I want to get out of show business. What’s in Idaho?”

  “Potatoes.”

  He sighed heavily. “I wanted to die, Diana.”

  I stroked his arm. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “They kept hitting me and burning me.” He raised his forefinger toward the ceiling. “Turn my train on.”

  I clicked a switch built into his nightstand. A replica of a “1930s” Santa Fe Super Chief with Pullman cars started chugging along a railed shelf erected high around the walls. Tiny silhouetted passengers showed in the windows. We watched the train roll around the room, disappearing into tunneled mountains, then reappearing. It tooted and flashed its lights at the railroad crossings. Even Heath moved into the room and stared at it intently. Watching seemed to calm both men. Is that all it took?

  Ryan’s house was decorated in early puberty. A sparkly purple drum set sat in the corner of his bedroom. Drumsticks had been scattered on the floor like old bones. A prized Martin guitar and a shiny alto sax leaned against a chair. On the wall across from his bed was a Sony screen as big as Picasso’s Guernica, while remote controls, play stations, and X boxes were stacked on shelves.

  He closed his eyes. I moved the ice pack to the corner of his bruised lips.

  Grimacing, he said, “Parson has a copy of the video of Jenny and me.”

  “How did he get it?” Heath moved closer, to the end of the bed.

  “I don’t think he knew who sent it. He wanted me to tell him who’d mailed it.”

  “And who was running the blackmail operation?” Heath asked.

  “I thought it might be the dead guy, Zackary Logan.”

  “But that wasn’t good enough?”

  “They wanted the name of a live person.” He slowly opened his good eye; the other remained a slit. “It wasn’t Rubio who scared me. It was the little one. He looked like he was going to perform a tango any moment.”

  “Luis?” Heath asked.

  The train tooted. “You know him?”

  “Oh, yes.” Heath nodded.

  “He kept smoking like Bette Davis, then he’d lean over me and press the cigarette into my leg and hold it there. He enjoyed it.”

  “Is your doctor reliable? Is he going to show up?” I asked.

  He rubbed the tips of his forefinger and thumb together indicating cash. That didn’t make me feel confident.

  “While Rubio beat me,” he continued, “and the other one burned me, Parson sat on his bed, howling like an animal, demanding I tell him who did this to his little girl.”

  “Did he mean who killed her? Or who videoed her having sex with you?” Heath asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “They could be one and the same,” I said.

  “Or not,” Heath countered.

  The doorbell chimed.

  “My doctor.” Ryan said. “I told you.”

  “Remember,” I warned. “If he asks what happened, you tell him you got beat up. That’s all you know.”

  “I love it when she mothers me,” Ryan said to Heath, who repressed a smile.

  I hurried downstairs and looked through the peephole. It was the doctor, all right. I opened the door and stepped back. A seedy cliché wearing an Armani suit, Italian loafers, and sporting a Rolex strolled in. Even his medical bag had a Gucci racing strip down the middle of it.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “I beg your pardon?” He peered over gold-wire glasses at me.

  “Nothing. Ryan’s been badly beaten. You can’t just throw pills at him. He’s up here.” I started up the stairs.

  “Drunk?” He followed me.

  “Not now.”

  In the bedroom he peered down at Ryan. “You’ve had some going over.” He set his bag on the floor and leaned over him. “His right eye will have to be looked at.”

  His sterile-looking hands felt Ryan’s abdomen and ribs. The Rolex gleamed. The train’s guardrail went up.

  “Pain?” the doctor asked.

  “Ribs.” Ryan groaned.

  “He could have a punctured lung.” He studied Ryan’s legs. “Your attackers burned you?”

  “Yes,” I answered for Ryan.

  Now he peered at me as if I were another wound he had to fix. “Odd thing for them to do.”

  “Ryan’s a lucky man.” Heath shifted his weight.

  The doctor’s shady eyes turned skeptical. “Extremely lucky.”

  “This is luck?” Ryan burbled.

  “I only ask to know whether I may be implicating myself in something … that could be a … problem.”

  “You aren’t,” I assured him. “Ryan’s a drunk. You’re not responsible for what he can or can’t remember.” Hearing my words aloud, I knew I’d just demeaned my friend and the beating he had taken. But at the same time, I had to make sure he was taken care of.

  “Well, I can’t treat him here. He must be hospitalized.”

  “But under your care and no publicity,” Heath said.

  The doctor looked over his glasses at Heath. “Who are you?”

  “I’m none of your business.” Heath casually pulled open his jacket, showing him the holstered Colt on his belt.

  He nodded submissively. “Under my care and no publicity. It’s what I get paid the big bucks for. I’ll call a private ambulance service I’ve used successfully in the past.” Taking out his cell, he dialed and issued orders. When he’d finished, he smiled obsequiously at me. “Sorry about your mother. I attended to her often, especially in her later years. If you ever need anything else… .” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed me a pristine white engraved card.

  How could one person be so clean and sleazy at the same time? This was the first ma
n I had met lately whom I was completely sure my mother had not gone to bed with.

  “I’ll be taking him to St. John’s in Santa Monica. He’ll be in the VIP wing, if I can get him in.” He punched in another number.

  “That’s not good enough,” I said. “Make sure you get him in the VIP wing. It’s what you get paid the big bucks for.”

  Another obsequious smirk. “Touché.” He made arrangements for Ryan in the VIP wing and then disconnected.

  “Would you two mind waiting downstairs?” Ryan asked the doctor and Heath.

  “Of course not.” The doctor picked up his bag and slipped out of the room.

  Heath went with him.

  After they had both gone, Ryan beckoned me with a finger, and I leaned close. “He’s not right for you, Diana.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re from the world of the arts.” He winced in pain. “You’re creative. He’s a fixer. That’s what you called him, remember?”

  “You said he was a good guy.”

  “But not for you.”

  I stroked his face. “Don’t worry. I like men who have a way with words.”

  “Yeah. But how many words?”

  Heath’s voice cut through the room. “The ambulance is here.”

  Making a face at Ryan, I reached over and turned off the train.

  Heath and I watched the ambulance leave with Ryan, and the doctor followed in his white Bentley. Then we locked the house and went down to the beach.

  Not talking, we stood feeling the cold wind on our faces. The houses overlooking the ocean were dark. My neighbors were away or sleeping; secure their multi-alarm systems would keep them safe. I looked toward my house. In the dim moonlight I could see that Kiki, the majordomo of Malibu, had found someone to board up the shattered glass doors. And now my house, my home, my tiny oasis appeared as abandoned and as dilapidated as Parson’s movie theater.